1. Article
Can You See How Happy We Are?
Facebook Images and Relationship
Satisfaction
Laura R. Saslow1
, Amy Muise2
, Emily A. Impett2
, and Matt Dubin3
Abstract
Love is often thought to involve a merging of identities or a sense that a romantic partner is part of oneself. Couples who report
feeling more satisfied with their relationships also feel more interconnected. We hypothesized that Facebook profile photos
would provide a novel way to tap into romantic partners’ merged identities. In a cross-sectional study (Study 1), a longitudinal
study (Study 2), and a 14-day daily experience study (Study 3), we found that individuals who posted dyadic profile pictures
on Facebook reported feeling more satisfied with their relationships and closer to their partners than individuals who did not.
We also found that on days when people felt more satisfied in their relationship, they were more likely to share relationship-
relevant information on Facebook. This study expands our knowledge of how online behavioral traces give us powerful insight
into the satisfaction and closeness of important social bonds.
Keywords
romantic relationships, emotion, Internet/cyberpsychology, well-being, self-presentation
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each
other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupe´ry
Love is often thought to involve a merging of identities or the
sense that one’s lover is part of oneself. The theory of self-
expansion, which describes this phenomenon, suggests that
greater identity overlap with one’s partner is tied to greater
relationship well-being (Aron & Aron, 1996). Indeed, married
and dating couples who are more interconnected report feeling
more satisfied with their romantic relationships (e.g., Agnew,
Van Lange, Rusbult, & Langston, 1998; Aron, Aron, &
Smollan, 1992). This interconnectedness spills into uncon-
scious behavior as well; romantic couples with higher quality
interactions are more likely to use pronouns that represent their
sense of unity or togetherness such as ‘‘we,’’ ‘‘us,’’ and ‘‘our’’
(Seider, Hirschberger, Nelson, & Levenson, 2009).
In the present research, we hypothesized that online Face-
book profile photos could serve as a novel and valid way to tap
into romantic partners’ merged identities. We hypothesized
that the more satisfied people felt with their relationships and
the closer they felt to a partner, the more likely they would
be to post dyadic photos of themselves and their partner as their
main Facebook profile photo.
With over 800 million active users, Facebook is a popular
way to connect with others (Facebook, 2012). Previous
research has found that participation in online social networks
builds social capital (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007) and is
used to strengthen offline relationships (Salimkhan, Manago, &
Greenfield, 2010) by enabling users to express affection toward
loved ones (Utz & Beukeboom, 2011). Information shared on
Facebook is associated with feelings of romantic jealousy
(Muise, Christofides, & Desmarais, 2009) and relationship
satisfaction in young dating couples (Papp, Danielewicz, &
Cayemberg, 2012), but no research to date has examined
Facebook behavior in the context of marital relationships or
over the course of time in relationships.
On Facebook, all users choose a photo to represent them-
selves. Because this profile photo is displayed prominently,
Facebook members can see each other’s profile photos without
needing to ‘‘friend’’ each other or otherwise interact. The
photos that people choose to display on Facebook constitute
a type of behavioral residue, ‘‘the physical traces left in the
environment by our everyday actions’’ (Gosling, 2008,
p. 25). Such behavioral residue, including how we decorate our
homes and design our websites, has been linked to psychologi-
cal phenomena such as Big Five traits (Reis & Gosling, 2010).
1
University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
2
University of Toronto, Mississauga, ON, Canada
3
Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Laura R. Saslow, University of California, Osher Center, 1545 Divisadero
Street, San Francisco, CA 94115, USA.
Email: saslowL@ocim.ucsf.edu or laura.saslow@gmail.com
Social Psychological and
Personality Science
4(4) 411-418
ª The Author(s) 2012
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1948550612460059
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2. Facebook profile images are very public representations of
the self and provide opportunities for self-presentation.
Research has found that people tend to post especially attrac-
tive versions of themselves online (Siibak, 2009; Strano,
2008; Young, 2008). As such, it is possible that people who are
less satisfied in their relationships would post dyadic profile
pictures as a self-presentation strategy to appear happier in
their relationships to other people. Research has also found,
however, that Facebook profiles provide fairly accurate
portrayals (Back et al., 2010; Wilson, Gosling, & Graham,
2012). In one study, strangers’ ratings of an individual’s per-
sonality based solely on their Facebook profile were strongly
correlated with participants’ self-ratings and the ratings of
close others who knew the participants well, but only weakly
correlated with participants’ ideal self-ratings (Back et al.,
2010). In another study, people who were liked on the basis
of a face-to-face interaction were also liked based on their
Facebook profiles, and people used the same criteria
(i.e., social expressiveness and self-disclosure) in both
situations to determine the person’s likability (Weisbuch, Ivce-
vic, & Ambady, 2009). Because Facebook is so popular and has
become integrated into the fabric of many people’s social lives,
it provides an ideal, naturalistic setting to investigate how
people present themselves to others.
Photographs, in particular, have been found to reflect the
state of our relationships and well-being. The intensity of
smiles and warm touch in family photos has been related to the
expression of positive emotions (Oveis, Gruber, Keltner,
Stamper, & Boyce, 2009); positive emotional expressions in
photos predict later marital status and divorce (Harker &
Keltner, 2001; Hertenstein, Hansel, Butts, & Hile, 2009); and
the intensity of undergraduates’ smiles in their Facebook pro-
file photos predicts their personal well-being several years later
(Seder & Oishi, 2011). Taken together, this research suggests
that the profile images that romantic partners choose to display
on Facebook may reflect how individuals feel in their relation-
ships and that people who choose to post photographs with a
romantic partner may be more satisfied with their relationships
and feel closer to their partners than those who do not.
The Current Research
We tested our hypotheses linking relationship satisfaction and
closeness with the decision to display dyadic profile pictures on
Facebook in three studies. Study 1 was a cross-sectional study
in which we assessed whether relationship satisfaction and clo-
seness are associated with the tendency to post profile images
with one’s romantic partner. In Study 2, we measured initial
relationship satisfaction and closeness and then coded partici-
pants’ profile pictures 3 times over a 1-year period. We
hypothesized that greater satisfaction and closeness at baseline
would be associated with the tendency to post dyadic profile
pictures at three time points over the course of a year. In Study
3, we conducted a daily experience study of dating couples to
consider how both partners’ feelings of relationship satisfaction
are associated with posting dyadic profile pictures and sharing
relationship-relevant information on Facebook.
Study 1
In our first study, we used self-report measures to test our
hypothesis that the more satisfied people felt in their romantic
relationship and the closer they felt to their partner, the more
likely they would be to post dyadic profile pictures on
Facebook.
Participants
Participants were 115 individuals living in the United States
recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (44 men, 70
women, 1 of unreported gender; ages 18–73, M ¼ 36.62,
SD ¼ 11.53; married between less than a year and 39 years,
M ¼ 9.83 years, SD ¼ 9.40; 87 were European American, 5
were Asian American, 10 were Latino, 9 were African Ameri-
can, and the rest were of another ethnicity; participants were
allowed to choose more than one ethnicity). To be eligible for
the study, participants had to be current Facebook users. Parti-
cipants recruited through this online service are shown to be
more representative of the U.S. population than participants
in typical online samples (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling,
2011). Participants received monetary compensations and were
included in the study if they correctly answered two ‘‘catch’’
items (‘‘Please answer strongly disagree’’; 16 did not answer
correctly) and identified as married and 18 years of age or
older.
Design and Procedure
Profile photos. We asked participants to rate how often over
the past 6 months they had chosen to display, as their main
Facebook profile photo, images that included themselves and
their spouse (1 ¼ never, 2 ¼ rarely, 3 ¼ sometimes, 4 ¼ usually,
and 5 ¼ always; M ¼ 2.55, SD ¼ 1.24).
Relationship satisfaction and closeness. We measured relation-
ship satisfaction and closeness with two face-valid items based
on the Perceived Relationship Quality Component Inventory
(Fletcher, Simpson, & Thomas, 2000), rated from 1 (not at all)
to 7 (extremely) with higher scores representing greater
satisfaction: ‘‘How satisfied/content/happy are you with your
relationship?’’ and ‘‘How intimate/close/connected is your
relationship?’’ As the 2 items were highly correlated
(r ¼ .93, p < .001) and overlapping in meaning, we averaged
the 2 items into one measure (M ¼ 5.77, SD ¼ 1.43).
Results
Consistent with our predictions, the more satisfied participants
felt with their marriages and the closer that people felt to their
spouses, the more frequently they reported posting a dyadic
profile picture on Facebook (r ¼ .21, p ¼ .028).1
Gender was
not a significant predictor and did not moderate this effect.
412 Social Psychological and Personality Science 4(4)

3. Study 2
Study 1 provided initial support for our hypothesis that
relationship satisfaction and closeness relate to how people rep-
resent themselves in photos online. Study 2 extends this finding
in four critical ways. First, Study 1 was limited by an exclusive
reliance on self-report measures. It is possible that happily mar-
ried people may be more likely to misremember that they have
posted dyadic profile pictures on Facebook. Study 2 rectifies this
limitation by including outside observer codes of married part-
ners’ profile pictures. Second, since Study 1 was cross-
sectional, in our second study we recruited married individuals,
assessed their initial feelings of satisfaction and closeness, and
then assessed the content of their profile pictures at three sepa-
rate time points over the course of a year. Third, while our first
study included 1-item indicators of relationship quality, we
improved the measurement of these constructs in Study 2 using
longer, well-validated measures. Finally, by including measures
of personal happiness, personality, and attachment style, we
sought to rule out the possibility that our initial findings could
be accounted for by people’s more general levels of happiness
or personality traits. For example, it may be that individuals who
are higher in Extraversion or who are more securely attached are
more likely to post dyadic pictures and simultaneously more
likely to be happy in their marriage. We hypothesized that peo-
ple higher in satisfaction and closeness at baseline would be
more likely to post dyadic profile pictures over a 1-year period
and that these results would not be due to general levels of
personal happiness or individual differences in personality.
Participants
Participants were 148 individuals living in the United States
recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (38 men, 110
women; ages 19–59, M ¼ 31.85, SD ¼ 9.24; married between
less than a year and 38 years, M ¼ 6.51 years, SD ¼ 7.27; 110
were European American, 9 were Asian American, 3 were
Latino, 4 were African American, and the rest were of another
ethnicity; participants were allowed to choose more than one
ethnicity). As in Study 1, participants were all current
Facebook users, received monetary compensation for partici-
pating, and were only included in the study if they answered
two ‘‘catch’’ items correctly (16 did not answer correctly) and
identified themselves as married and 18 years of age or older.
Design and Procedure
Profile photos. With permission given at baseline, we down-
loaded participants’ Facebook profile images at three time
points: baseline (Time 1), 4 months after baseline (Time 2), and
12 months after baseline (Time 3). Across all time periods, a
trained coder rated whether or not a married couple was present
in the photo (1 ¼ dyadic photo; 0 ¼ nondyadic photo). To
demonstrate the reliability of these codes, five raters coded all
images at baseline (a ¼ .95). We compared coders’ ratings to
participants’ reports, which were assessed by asking
participants the following at baseline: ‘‘Is your current profile
picture of you and your romantic partner?’’ with either a yes
(1) or no (0). Participants’ reports were associated with the
observer ratings at baseline: w2
(1) ¼ 155.73, p < .001. For all
subsequent analyses, we used observer codes. Across each of the
three time points, 23–25% of the photos were coded as dyadic
and 75–77% were coded as nondyadic. Over time, 61% of peo-
ple never posted a dyadic photo, 16% of people posted a dyadic
image once, 14% of people posted a dyadic image twice, and 9%
of people posted a dyadic image at all three time points.
Relationship satisfaction and closeness. At baseline, we
assessed relationship satisfaction and closeness with two sub-
scales from the Perceived Relationship Quality Component
Inventory (Fletcher et al., 2000), rated from 1 (not at all)
to 7 (extremely) with higher scores representing greater qual-
ity (relationship satisfaction, 3 items: a ¼ .98; M ¼ 5.96,
SD ¼ 1.39; relationship closeness, 3 items: a ¼ .92;
M ¼ 5.80, SD ¼ 1.34). As in Study 1, since the two measures
were highly correlated (r ¼ .88, p < .001), we averaged the 2
items into one measure (M ¼ 5.88, SD ¼ 1.32).
Personal happiness. We measured personal happiness with
the Subjective Happiness scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper,
1999; 4 items), rated on a 7-point scale with higher scores
representing greater happiness (a ¼ .88; M ¼ 5.16, SD ¼ 1.23).
Personality. Participants completed the Ten Item Personality
Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003), which
contains 2 items for each of the Big Five personality constructs
of Extraversion (M ¼ 4.14, SD ¼ 1.60), Openness (M ¼ 5.20,
SD ¼ 1.10), Conscientiousness (M ¼ 5.34, SD ¼ 1.22), Neuro-
ticism (M ¼ 3.27, SD ¼ 1.47), and Agreeableness (M ¼ 5.30,
SD ¼ 1.10). Items were answered on a scale ranging from 1
(disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly). As reported in Gosl-
ing, Rentfrow, and Swann (2003), the scale is a reliable and
valid measure.
Attachment style. Participants were presented with three
descriptions from Hazan and Shaver (1987), which briefly
describe the prototypical secure, anxious, and avoidant attach-
ment styles. Participants selected the scenario which best
described themselves. We then recoded answers to reflect
secure attachment (70%; coded as a 1) or insecure attachment
(30%; coded as a 0).
Results
We hypothesized that relationship satisfaction and closeness
measured at baseline would predict the tendency to post dyadic
profile pictures over the course of a year. To assess if our contin-
uous measures of relationship satisfaction and closeness pre-
dicted correlated binary responses over time, we used
Generalized Estimating Equations (Zeger & Liang, 1986). We
conducted these analyses using the REPEATED statement in the
GENLIN procedure in SPSS 19. None of the effects interacted
with time; that is, the associations between relationship quality
and the tendency to post dyadic profile images did not differ
Saslow et al. 413

4. across the three time points in the study. Therefore, we report
results with the main effect of both time and the photo variable
entered into the model.
Consistent with our predictions and the results of Study 1,
the tendency to post dyadic profile pictures was significantly
predicted by relationship satisfaction and closeness (b ¼ .07,
p ¼ .002, w2
¼ 9.85).1
See Figures 1 and 2. Gender was not
a significant predictor of the tendency to post dyadic profile
pictures and did not significantly moderate this effect.
Moreover, none of the covariates (happiness, personality, and
attachment style) were significantly associated with the ten-
dency to post a dyadic profile picture (all ps > .15), and the
results remained significant after controlling for each of these
covariates.
Study 3
Studies 1 and 2 provided support for our hypothesis that indi-
viduals who are more satisfied in their relationship and feel
closer to their romantic partner are more likely to post dyadic
profile pictures on Facebook. Study 3 is a 14-day daily experi-
ence study of dating couples that enabled us to extend these
findings in two critical ways. First, in Studies 1 and 2, we only
had reports from one partner; therefore in Study 3 we consid-
ered whether people’s own feelings of relationship satisfaction
predict whether they post a dyadic profile picture and whether
their partner posts a dyadic profile picture, controlling for their
partner’s own relationship satisfaction. Past research drawing
on interdependence theory has shown that people’s own
expressions of commitment influence how their romantic
partner feels about the relationship (Wieselquist, Rusbult,
Foster, & Agnew, 1999). Based upon this work, we predicted
that people who are more satisfied in their relationship would
be more likely not only to post dyadic profile pictures but to
have partners who are more likely to do so as well. Second,
we also considered whether daily feelings of relationship
satisfaction influence the sharing of relationship-relevant infor-
mation on Facebook. Previous research has shown that on days
when people feel more jealous in their relationships, they spend
more time monitoring their partner’s activities on Facebook
(Marshall, Bejanyan, Di Castra, & Lee, 2012), suggesting that
daily feelings about a relationship can influence Facebook use.
Thus, we tested the prediction that on days when participants
report greater relationship satisfaction, they would be more
likely to post relationship-relevant information on Facebook.
We also tested whether daily feelings of satisfaction would
predict a partner’s tendency to post relationship-relevant
information on Facebook.
Participants
Participants were 108 heterosexual dating couples (N ¼ 216)
recruited from a small university in Ontario, Canada. The par-
ticipants ranged in age from 19 to 31 (M ¼ 21.05, SD ¼ .94)
and had been together from 2 to 73 months (M ¼ 73.00,
SD ¼ 19.74), with 9% of the couples living together. Partici-
pants comprised a diverse range of ethnicities; European
(40%), Asian (20%), Black/African American (8%), Latin
American (5%), Aboriginal (2%), and 25% self-identified as
‘‘other.’’ To be eligible for the study, participants had to be
current Facebook users.
Procedure
On the first day of the study, participants were asked to
complete a 30-min background survey and to ‘‘friend’’ the
study’s Facebook page. Upon joining the study, participants
consented to allow us to download their Facebook profiles. The
participants were also asked to complete a 10-min online
survey each night for 14 consecutive nights, and to do so inde-
pendently from their partner. To maximize compliance with the
daily part of the protocol, reminder e-mails were sent to the
Figure 1. The relationship between relationship satisfaction at
baseline and dyadic Facebook profile images over 1 year (Study 2).
Error bars represent standard errors of the mean.
Figure 2. The relationship between relationship closeness at baseline
and dyadic Facebook profile images over 1 year (Study 2). Error bars
represent standard errors of the mean.
414 Social Psychological and Personality Science 4(4)

5. participants who had not completed their daily diaries by 10
p.m. each night. On average, participants completed 12 diaries
across the 14-day study (Range ¼ 1–14, M ¼ 12.45, SD ¼ 3.72)
for a total of 2,689 days across participants. Participants were
paid $40 each for taking part in the study.
Background Measures
Profile photos. With permission given at baseline, we down-
loaded participants’ Facebook profile images on the first day of
the study. Two trained coders rated whether or not a couple was
present in the photo (1 ¼ dyadic photo; 0 ¼ nondyadic photo).
Since both members of the couple participated in the study,
after the ratings were complete, coders were able to verify that
the other person in the photo was in fact the person’s romantic
partner.
Relationship satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction was
assessed with 5 items such as ‘‘I feel satisfied with our relation-
ship’’ (a ¼ .91; M ¼ 7.77, SD ¼ 1.16) from Rusbult, Martz, and
Agnew (1998) rated on a 9-point scale from 1 (do not agree) to
9 (agree completely).
Satisfaction with life. Satisfaction with life was assessed with 5
items such as ‘‘In most ways my life is close to my ideal’’
(a ¼ .87; M ¼ 5.01, SD ¼ 1.27) from Diener, Emmons, Larsen,
and Griffin (1985) rated on a 7-point scale from 1 (strongly
agree) to 7 (strongly disagree).
Personality. As in Study 2, participants completed the TIPI
(Gosling et al., 2003), with measures of Extraversion
(M ¼ 4.76, SD ¼ 1.48), Openness (M ¼ 5.36, SD ¼ 1.05), Con-
scientiousness (M ¼ 5.29, SD ¼ 1.17), Neuroticism (M ¼ 3.30,
SD ¼ 1.36), and Agreeableness (M ¼ 4.81, SD ¼ 1.08). Items
were answered on a scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to
7 (agree strongly).
Attachment. Attachment was measured using the 12-item
Experiences in Close Relationship–Short Form (Wei, Russell,
Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007). Items assessed attachment anxi-
ety (6 items; a ¼ .79, M ¼ 3.28, SD ¼ 1.24; ‘‘I worry romantic
partners won’t care about me as much as I care about them’’)
and attachment avoidance (6 items; a ¼ .87, M ¼ 1.97,
SD ¼ .96; ‘‘I try to avoid getting too close to my partner’’) and
were rated on scale from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree
strongly).
Time spent on Facebook. Participants were asked, ‘‘On
average, approximately how many minutes per day do you
spend on Facebook?’’ and responded by entering the number
of minutes (Range ¼ 0–400, M ¼57.56, SD ¼ 52.77).
Daily Measures
Relationship satisfaction. Participants responded to three items
about how satisfied they felt in their relationship (Rusbult,
Martz, & Agnew, 1998; a ¼ .93, M ¼ 5.71, SD ¼ 1.40) on a
7-point scale from 1 (do not agree) to 7 (agree completely).
Satisfaction with life. Participants rated how happy they were
on a scale from 1 (very unhappy) to 6 (very happy) with three
aspects of life: yourself, your friends, and your family (a ¼ .80,
M ¼ 4.87, SD ¼ 1.15).
Facebook posts. Participants responded to 1 item ‘‘I shared
information about my relationship or my partner on Facebook
today (i.e., posted a status update, wall post, photo comment, or
photos about or with my partner)’’ on a 7-point scale from 1
(not at all) to 5 (very much).
Time spent on Facebook. Participants reported the number of
minutes they spent on Facebook (Range ¼ 0–600, M ¼ 32.07,
SD ¼ 49.08).
Results
The coding of participants’ Facebook profile picture resulted in
high initial agreement between coders (k ¼ .97). The coders
only disagreed on two of the photos, and after discussion, both
of these photos were considered nondyadic. Consistent with
Study 2, about one quarter (27.5%) of the participants had a
dyadic profile picture, and about three quarters (72.5%) had a
nondyadic profile picture.
To test our first prediction that participants who reported
higher levels of relationship satisfaction would be more likely
to display a dyadic photo on Facebook, we conducted a binary
logistic regression. As expected, participants who reported
higher relationship satisfaction were more likely to post a dya-
dic profile picture (odds ratio [OR] ¼ 2.32, 95% confidence
interval [CI] [1.59, 3.39], p < .001). That is, for each unit
increase in relationship satisfaction, participants were more
than 2 times as likely to post a dyadic profile picture. This asso-
ciation remained significant after controlling for the amount of
time participants spent on Facebook, their satisfaction with life,
their ratings on the Big Five personality traits, and attachment
anxiety and avoidance. None of these variables significantly
predicted posting a dyadic profile picture. In addition, gender
was not a significant predictor of whether or not a person
posted a dyadic profile picture and did not moderate any of the
effects.
Consistent with our second prediction, participants who
were higher in relationship satisfaction had partners who were
more likely to post a dyadic profile picture on Facebook
(OR ¼ 1.94, 95% CI [1.37, 2.74], p < .001). For each unit
increase in relationship satisfaction, a person’s partner was
almost 2 times as likely to post a dyadic profile picture on
Facebook. This finding remained significant after controlling
for the partner’s own relationship satisfaction. In addition, the
romantic partner’s relationship satisfaction did not moderate
the association between one’s own relationship satisfaction and
posting a dyadic profile picture.
Our third prediction concerned the association between
daily relationship satisfaction and the tendency to share
relationship-relevant information on Facebook. We analyzed
the data using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM, Version
6.08; Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong, & Congdon, 2004). We used
Saslow et al. 415

6. a three-level model to simultaneously control for dependencies
in the same person’s reports across days and dependencies
between partners (Gable & Poore, 2008). Level-1 (i.e., daily)
predictors were centered on each individual’s mean across the
14-day study, which assesses whether day-to-day changes from
a participant’s own mean are associated with changes in the
outcome variable, consequently unconfounding between- and
within-person effects. These results showed that on days when
participants felt more satisfied with their relationship (than they
typically did across the 14-day study), they were more likely to
share relationship-relevant information on Facebook, b ¼ .03,
t(2281) ¼ 2.35, p ¼ .02. This association remained significant
after controlling for time spent on Facebook and daily feelings
of satisfaction with life. In addition, we tested whether a per-
son’s daily relationship satisfaction was associated with their
partner’s tendency to post about their relationship, but this
association was not significant. Finally, posting pictures in gen-
eral was not associated with relationship satisfaction (r ¼ .012,
p ¼ .87) and our effects remained significant after controlling
for this factor, suggesting that this association is specific to the
sharing of relationship-relevant information.
Discussion
When people interact with others online, they must choose how
to represent themselves. The current research provides the first
empirical evidence to show that the ways in which people
chose to represent themselves pictorially on Facebook are
related to how happy they are in their relationships and how
close they feel to their romantic partner. We found evidence
through cross-sectional self-report (Study 1), longitudinal
outside-observer coded behavior (Study 2) and dyadic daily
experiences (Study 3) that individuals who are more satisfied
in their relationships are more likely to post images of
themselves and their partner as their main profile photo on
Facebook. In Study 3, we also found that on days when people
are more satisfied with their relationships they are more likely
to share relationship-relevant information on Facebook.
Posting dyadic profile pictures and other relationship-relevant
information on Facebook was not associated with personal
well-being, satisfaction with life, or individual differences in
Big Five personality traits. These results suggest that people
who post dyadic pictures and share relationship-relevant
information tend to be more highly satisfied with their romantic
relationships, as opposed to being happier or more satisfied
with their lives in general.
In addition, we found that people who are more satisfied
in their relationships have partners who are more likely to
post dyadic profile pictures on Facebook. However, our pre-
diction that one partner’s daily feelings of satisfaction
would be associated with the other partner’s tendency to
post relationship-relevant information was not supported.
It is possible that romantic partners are simply more in tune
with each other’s general levels of relationship satisfaction,
as opposed to daily feelings of satisfaction, and therefore
one partner’s day-to-day feelings are not associated with the
other partner’s Facebook use.
The current study provides evidence that dyadic profile
pictures on Facebook are an important marker of interconnect-
edness in a relationship. Interdependence theory posits that
romantic partners who rely on and are influenced by each other
are more likely to depart from their own self interest in order to
pursue goals that strengthen the relationship (Kelley &
Thibaut, 1978; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). Self-expansion theory
argues that a close relationship involves expanding the self to
include the other (Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991), and
a greater overlap with one’s partner is associated with higher
relationship quality (Aron & Aron, 1996). Extending this work,
just as the language that couples use (e.g., pronouns such as
‘‘we’’ and ‘‘us’’) provides an unconscious marker of closeness
(Agnew et al., 1998; Aron et al., 1992), pictorial representa-
tions displayed on social networking sites provide another,
novel marker of the quality of important social bonds.
The current findings support a growing body of research
suggesting that representations on Facebook correspond
closely with offline personality ratings and emotions. For
example, individuals high in narcissism are more likely to
engage in self-promotion on their Facebook profiles; however,
independent raters are able to see through these self-promotion
tactics and correctly judge these users as narcissistic (Buffardi
& Campbell, 2008). Although individuals with low self-esteem
indicate that Facebook is an appealing forum for
self-disclosure, their expressions of low positivity and high
negativity on their Facebook profiles result in people liking
them less than people with high self-esteem (Forest & Wood,
2012). In addition, strangers are accurate in assessing an
individual’s personality based solely on their Facebook profile
(Back et al., 2010).
The current study indicates several directions for future
research. We provide evidence that feelings of relationship
satisfaction are linked to displaying dyadic profile pictures, but
we did not explicitly test a mechanism for this association. As
we suggest above, couples who are more satisfied may choose
to post dyadic profile pictures due to increased feelings of inter-
connectedness or self-other overlap. We believe the reverse
association—that having a dyadic profile picture predicts
greater satisfaction—is less likely, but acknowledge that this
link could be bidirectional. More satisfied couples are more
likely to post dyadic profile pictures; seeing their Facebook
profile may then remind them of their happy relationship and
make them feel more satisfied.
Previous research indicates that, in addition to being associ-
ated with positive relationship outcomes, information posted
on Facebook is associated with jealousy and conflict in rela-
tionships (Marshall et al., 2012; Muise et al., 2009). Given the
widespread use of Facebook and its association with feelings
about a romantic partner, future research could further examine
how romantic couples use Facebook in the context of their
romantic relationships, how they make decisions about what
information to share on Facebook, and the individual and
relational factors associated with the positive and negative
416 Social Psychological and Personality Science 4(4)

7. consequences of sharing relationship-relevant information on
Facebook. In addition, future research could consider how
sharing relationship-relationship information on Facebook is
associated with other people’s perceptions, such as whether
outside observers can judge a person’s relationship satisfaction
from their Facebook profile alone, and how people perceive
those who disclose information about their romantic relation-
ship on Facebook. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate that
how individuals feel about their romantic partner spills into
their online behavior. Following in the vein of other studies
on behavioral residue (e.g., Gosling, 2008), the current research
suggests that analyzing the content of online behavior will lead
to a richer understanding of social and psychological behavior.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank David Chen Samantha Chou, Lameese
Eldesouky, Meghan George, Celia Gong, Rata Iwan, Shameel Khan,
and Bonnie Le for help with coding, and Dacher Keltner and members
of the Relationships and Well-Being Lab at the University of Toronto
for helpful comments.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
research was funded by research grants from the University of
Guelph-Humber awarded to Amy Muise and from the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) awarded to Emily Impett.
Laura Saslow was supported by a postdoctoral research fellowship
from the Osher Center at the University of California, San Francisco,
and Amy Muise was supported by a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship.
Note
1. The results hold when we consider relationship satisfaction and
closeness separately.
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Author Biographies
Laura Saslow is a social and personality psychologist who studies
psychological well-being. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in
Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Amy Muise is a social psychologist studying sexuality and relation-
ships. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Psychology at the Uni-
versity of Toronto.
Emily Impett is an assistant professor of Psychology at the University
of Toronto Mississauga. The main goal of her research is to investi-
gate how close relationships influence our happiness and well-being.
Matt Dubin is currently a doctoral student in Positive Developmental
Psychology at Claremont Graduate University, studying how to
promote psychological well-being.
418 Social Psychological and Personality Science 4(4)